CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE-Dwarves

CYBER-PULP FANTASY CORE

© Jerry Harris 2013

Published here as Open Game Content.

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DWARVES

Dwarves are ancient in their traditions and racial pride.  Conversely, when dwarves decide to change, their society is able to do so on a dime to embrace new paradigms.  Once beholden to artificing excellent magical devices, they have changed to being the premier mechanical industrialists, and are just staring to go full bore cyber.  The dwarves have a tendency to act in unity, which is at times a tremendous advantage, but seems to end over and over again in their ultimate humiliation.  Their false sense of supremacy leads them to allying themselves to bad causes, and they are crushed and punished for it.  Little wonder they’re so dour and bitter.          

Dwarves are all male and sterile, thus they don’t procreate via sex (though they are capable of the act itself).  Dwarves have been traditionally crafted from stone.  More recently, they have been created through cloning (though the clone is not alive in any sense after being created).  Either way, an Awakening ceremony is performed on the statue/body to bring them to life.  This involves a Dwarf (or more likely many Dwarves) passing along a fraction of their lifefore into the simulacrum.  Usually a clan gathering is for purpose of Awakenings.  As Dwarves age they accumulate more lifeforce and can recover it, but a ceremony is a significant drain.  Only the eldest of Dwarves could perform one by themselves, but as they age they are less able to recover from the act. 

Crafted Dwarves cannot accept artificial implants, but cloned ones can, so all Dwarf player characters are clones.  There is some social animosity between the two groups (and they can all instantly tell one another apart, though other races can’t), but Crafted Dwarves recognize that cloning is the future of their race.  While a Crafted Dwarf may last hundreds of years before returning to stone (often choosing their death pose in their final moments as they become a statue), there is a question as to how long a clone will last and what becomes of them in death.  So far, none have been alive long enough to die from natural causes. 

Clone Dwarves are not true “clones” in a duplicate sense, but rather genetically crafted bodies, usually to spec.  They’re just as highly crafted as stone Crafted Dwarves.  Dwarf personalities are all their own after an Awakening, but the prolonged clan mentoring process will leave its mark.  All Dwarves are technically cousins or brothers.  The Clans all trace back to the original Seven Brothers.  (I can never remember all of their names.) 

Let’s answer a few questions.  A Crafted or Cloned “female” Dwarf body that is Awakened, still can’t breed with a male Dwarf.  This is actually how the Gnome race started.  The females were able to breed with Humans.  They’ll be discussed later.  A Crafted Dwarf that doesn’t die a natural death, simply becomes a dead body.  If you cast a Stone to Flesh spell on your dearly departed Great Grandpa, he just becomes a dead body, instead of a statue.  All Dwarves consider any desecration of a “Stoned” Dwarf a complete sacrilege.